The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy is a multidisciplinary, collaborative venture to produce research, research-based policy prescriptions, and curricular innovation on the most challenging civil rights, education, criminal justice, family and economic security, immigration and healthcare issues facing California and the Nation. The Warren Institute’s mission is to engage the most difficult topics in a wide range of legal and public policy subject areas, providing valuable intellectual capital to public and private sector leaders, the media and the general public, while advancing scholarly understanding. Central to its methods are concerted efforts to build bridges connecting the world of research with the world of civic action and policy debate so that each informs the other, while preserving the independence, quality and credibility of the academic enterprise.

WHAT'S NEW

Vision 21 Forum: A Data-Driven Approach to Victims Services

In February 2015, Warren Institute Legal Policy Associate
Heather Warnken will present on the importance of
researcher-practitioner partnerships for the U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime
(OVC). The presentation will underscore the importance of a
data-driven approach to policy decisions impacting victims of
crime, and highlight contributions from four recent Warren
Institute projects, including Untold Stories of California Crime
Victims: Research and Recommendations on Repeat Victimization
and Rebuilding Lives (April 2014). This report, supported by a
collaboration with Californians for Safety and Justice, uses
quantitative and qualitative research to give voice to victims
who have not been part of the dialogue, including victims of
color who reside in California communities frequently impacted
by crime.

Local
Control Funding Formula in California: How to Monitor Progress and Learn From
This Grand Experiment

This
brief sets out the central empirical questions arising from key
moving parts in the Local Control Funding Formula in California (LCFF)
implementation efforts. It details how eight districts are approaching the
reform, and describes the program models on which those eight districts will
rely in Year 1 of implementation. It also defines emerging goals for research
and evaluation. Most importantly, the paper outlines a tentative division
of labor for multi-year monitoring of LCFF and Common Core implementation,
including identification of promising practices at each level. This brief
reflects feedback from participating researchers, as well as advocates and
others.
The brief is authored by Bruce
Fuller, Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of
California, Berkeley and Fellow with Partners for Each and Every Child
and Laura Tobben, Student at the Graduate School of Education,
University of California, Berkeley.

What Works In
Community Policing? A Best Practices Context For Measure Y Efforts

In this Best Practices report, Sarah Lawrence and Bobby
McCarthy provide a brief history of the Community Policing movement in the
United States and provide examples of successful Community Policing initiatives
implemented by a variety of police departments in cities across the country. This
report looks at community policing in context nationwide as part of a broader
effort to assist policymakers in the City of Oakland in their 10-year
evaluation of the Violence Prevention and Public Safety Act of 2004 (Measure
Y). This is the first of three reports the Warren Institute produced in
2013-2014 as part of the Measure Y evaluation for the City of Oakland, in
partnership with Resource Development Associates.

Crime Trends in the
City of Oakland: A 25-Year Look (1987-2012)

In this quantitative crime trend analysis, Bobby McCarthy
and Sarah Lawrence examine long-term crime trends in the City of Oakland over a
25-year period to provide context for how crime in the city has trended before
and after the passage of Measure Y. This report presents aggregate crime data
and crime rates, as well as the rates of the seven major violent and property
crime types. Additionally, crime rates for the City of Oakland are compared to
the State of California as well as four select comparison cities within the
state to provide City officials with a context for how Oakland’s crime rate has
tracked relative to state and regional trends over the last quarter-century. This is the second of three reports the Warren
Institute produced in 2013-2014 as part of the Measure Y evaluation for the
City of Oakland, in partnership with Resource Development Associates.

Where and When Does
Crime Happen in Oakland: A Temporal and Spatial Analysis (January 2008 – July
2013)

In this geo-spatial and temporal analysis on
crime in Oakland, Bobby McCarthy and Sarah Lawrence examine how crime in
Oakland is distributed by neighborhood, police district, season, day of week, and
time of day over a 5 ½ year period ending July 2013. This report is intended to
assist Oakland policymakers in making informed decisions about public safety
investments and future community-policing initiatives in the city, and is the
third of three reports the Warren Institute produced in 2013-2014 as part of
the Measure Y evaluation for the City of Oakland in partnership with Resource
Development Associates.

The Making of Ferguson: Public Policies at the Root of its Troubles

When
Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August over the police killing of an
unarmed black teenager, Warren Institute Senior Fellow Richard Rothstein
began to investigate
how Ferguson became the segregated black suburb it is today -- where
student performance is inadequate in the town’s segregated schools,
where poverty rates are high, where half the homes have “underwater”
mortgages, and where black men and youths are frequent
subjects of police harassment, and worse. If you have comments or questions that you would like to put directly to Richard Rothstein, you can write to him
here, at
rrothstein@law.berkeley.edu.

For the report, click here.
For a shorter, article-length version, click here.
Webcast: Sherrilyn Ifill, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Richard
Rothstein, discuss how a century
of purposeful federal, state, and local policy to segregate the St.
Louis metropolitan area by race
was at the root of the events in Ferguson. To watch, click here.

As California Goes, So Goes the Nation?

A new law that more strongly prohibits discrimination against pregnant graduate students could be coming to a state near you. Mary Ann Mason, Faculty Co-Director, writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Advice Column.

Renewing Communities: California Pathways from Corrections to College

In collaboration with the Stanford Criminal Justice Center and with
funding from the Ford Foundation, the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy
is spearheading an initiative to expand post-secondary educational
opportunities for people in the criminal justice system in California.
The project involves identifying existing and promising service delivery
models for jail- and prison-based education, as well as services within
the community; researching best practices; analyzing the criminal
justice and educational landscape for California; building support for
and developing a demonstration pilot project for the State of
California. For more information, click here.

The Changing Face of America: Immigration and the Politics of Reform

In partnership with the Graduate School of Journalism, the Warren Institute sponsored the 4th New York Times Institute on Immigration Reporting. The seminar focused on the impact of the growing Latino and Asian-American electorate on current immigration reform efforts in Congress. Participants received hands-on training in demographic analysis and working with Census data on voter registration and turnout. They also heard up-to-the-minute assessments of legislation in play in Washington and the power dynamics behind it by expert presenters.